Burgeon
by Lucinda the Maid
Summary: [Drabble] There will always be more next spring. [Kagome x Kohaku]


A giftfic for Numisma, who requested Kagome/Kohaku. Be forewarned; this fic contains implied underage sexuality, pseudo-incest, and sexual metaphors.

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**Disclaimer: **I don't think so.

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**Burgeon**

In the place where the past ends and the future begins, there are little white flowers that bloom each spring. They are plentiful in number and crawl their little bodies up the edges of the well, and Kagome likes to pluck them from the ground and snap their necks.

Each stoop of her body is for every time she's tried to return but _couldn't_. Each broken stem represents the number of tears she's cried. And the broken heads at her feet are the memories and the people she misses so.

The flowers leave a sticky yellow residue behind on her hands.

And though she can wash and scrub and try to make them clean, there will always be more new buds at the start of next spring.

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Kohaku weaves the flowers together, his nimble hands working without stumble to form a chain that will link the past to the present. It's been years since the past has ended and the future was sealed off, and still the face of a crying, brown-eyed girl haunts his dreams. 

"Where is she?" he asks Kagome one day, his own dark eyes peering up at her.

Kagome cannot bring herself to look at him; she only concentrates on the stems that he bends but that he refuses to break completely. "Sango, you mean?

"She is buried in the past."

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Kagome feels guilty when she thinks that Kohaku reminds her of her brother. He always had and always will, for she could not and cannot listen to the clink of his Kusarigama without remembering the chain on Souta's bicycle. 

Of course, Kohaku has since rid himself of the weapon and the memories attached to it. But sometimes, Kagome likes to unearth it from its hiding place behind the hut they share, to dig at the fresh dirt with soot-thick fingernails if only to remember and to give herself an excuse to come clean.

She sits now with Kohaku with her back to the well, faced away from a future she cannot reach. Kohaku threads the tiny white blossoms together, and for the first time, Kagome cannot recall whether Souta liked flowers.

"You remind me of someone," Kohaku says suddenly. "A girl with brown eyes…" Kagome smiles, for she's gotten used to statements like these; she's even begun to accept them as truth because Sango is someone that is lost in the past, just like Kagome herself.

"You've told me; I've heard it before." And then she thinks of Inu-Yasha and the woman he chose to be with, the woman whose face in those final moments looked so at ease for at long last, she had made peace with her past. "…many times, actually."

Kohaku nods. "I see. But I guess that's a good thing because most of the time, I don't remember much at all."

What Kagome wants to say is that it isn't, because if you do not hold onto memories, you will have nothing left to miss after the end. What she winds up doing, however, is reaching for his shoulder, and she tells him, "Here, your hands are dirty. Let's go wash off the pollen."

And so she helps him to wash and scrub them clean, and for some reason, he leaves the water basin immaculately dry.

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Kohaku trails his fingers down Kagome's back and ties heavy chains of flowers through her thick, dark hair. She likes it because it makes her feel bound to something, like a future she will never return to, and he continues to do it because there is little else he knows-remembers how to. 

"Stay with me," she says, guiding his hands lower down on her body.

And Kohaku wraps her in flowers and obeys, and when they are through she is covered in yellow.

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He sleeps with his head on her shoulder, covered in a blanket of petals, his heavy breath bearing down on Kagome's neck. 

It rattles, like a chain, like his Kusarigama, like her brother's bike.

And suddenly, everything belongs. _Kagome_ belongs.

She floats through her present state of being and threads her fingers into Kohaku's skin. She revels in the touch, for Kagome knows that she can break him so easily.

But she doesn't because no one else she knows can make the past seem more like a future.

She can simply pick him up and snap him in half, and she wants to do that more than anything else, but then, he is the only person who can make her feel like she belongs.

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The seasons pass. Spring thrives then withers then fades then dies. Kohaku grows older, his voice gets lower, his hands grow broader, his eyes grow deeper. 

And yet Kohaku is the same because he can still weave the flowers that bloom each year together as masterfully as always.

Kagome twirls a stem of her own between her fingers, deciding that, for once, she will not make a move to break it.

Instead, she picks one more, and her hands clumsily work the two flowers together.

On Kohaku's face there is the ghost of a smile, and the image of the brown-eyed girl is obliterated from his mind.

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His hands brush hers that night, and his lips, thicker-sweeter-older lips, capture hers with confidence, maturity. 

Tonight there are two chains of flowers wrapped about them.

Tonight his breathing is steady, and Kagome does not think of the future-past.

"Hey… you never answered me before… will you stay with me?"

And if she listens to his breathing above the whisper of the flowers, she can hear him say "I will."

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In the place where the past ends and the future begins, there are little white flowers that bloom each spring. 

And in a hut where the past is forgotten and the future is discarded, it is spring all the time.

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**End fic.** Reviews, especially constructive ones, would be lovely if you feel so inclined to comment on this. Thanks for reading. 


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